THE SUPREME COURT: A Firm Foundation

While the Southerners kept the
Senate stalled on civil rights, the Supreme Court last week pressed
forward the cause of Negro voting rights in the South. Unanimously
overturning the ruling of a U.S.
district court in Georgia, the Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of the key section of the Civil Rights Act of 1957
which empowers the Justice Department to file civil suit on behalf of
Negroes denied the right to vote by local officials.

The first use of the actand its first legal testcame in southern
Georgia's Terrell County, where in 1956 only 48 of 5,036 voting-age
Negroes were...